A Republican strategist privy to much of the polling conducted in House districts said that, at this point, it is not difficult to count enough vulnerable districts to show how Democrats can take control. But he offered a cautionary point: "I don't know of a single target race," he said, where the Republican candidate "has spent more than 20 percent of what they intend to spend. The battle is just beginning. That's what people really forget."

The story of Hillary Clinton possibly opting out of the 2008 presidential race in order to be Senate Majority Leader has made it from The Washington Note to the LA Times and now across the pond to London. There are so many ifs, ands, and buts to this story that you would think this was a non-election year and people were desperate for political stories.

In response to your question, "Which press outlets have agreed to those conditions?" I think there are actually a fair number that would take those terms if it meant an interview with Rove -- or any number of good sources of information within the administration or in Congress. Granted, you need to be someone close to power -- a special assistant to the President would qualify of course, but also any number of press secretaries for the more powerful members of Congress, because agreeing to those terms largely means you're going to get a background interview with the person in question. Which can be worth it, if they have good enough information to share.

In many cases, it may make perfect sense for a reporter to have a conversation on background so that the person being interviewed will feel more at ease and won't have to constantly be on guard. Speaking on the record is a pretty big pain in the ass actually, since one slip and you've said the phrase that will be the headline. So this allows the interviewer to actually get substantive information, and if there's a great quote that he'd love to print -- either attached to the actual person or sourced to an anonymous official -- he can ask afterwards and will often get what he wants. So this technique serves to grease the wheels of the reporter-source transaction.

That said, in this case it's obvious that this was too big of a demand since Rove was actually the SUBJECT of the story, rather than a press flack who can give some good background and maybe even serve up a juicy quote. I can see why the Times would refuse his demand, but it is interesting that it would call him out on this in the article: this is something that happens in DC; by devoting a whole paragraph to explaining their refusal, it serves to embarrass Rove. Maybe this says something about Rove's weakening ability to intimidate journalists into agreeing to whatever set of demands he dictates to them?

I suppose I mostly agree with MD as to when such ground rules would be acceptable, but I took the White House claim to mean that those ground rules had been successfully applied before when Rove was the subject of the piece.

Rove & Company have narrowed the battlefield (or at least that's what they're saying for public consumption):

They have determined that control of Congress is likely to be settled in as few as six states and have decided to focus most of the partyâs resources there, said Republican officials who did not want to be identified discussing internal deliberations. Those states will likely include Connecticut, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington, though officials said the battle lines could shift in coming weeks.

The White House said that Mr. Rove would consider an interview for this article if it were conducted off the record, with the provision that quotations could be put on the record with White House approval, a condition it said was set for other interviews with Mr. Rove. The New York Times declined.

The Pakistani regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been negotiating truces - with the Bush administration's encouragement - with Islamic separatists in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, mountainous tribal areas along the Afghan border where U.S. officials think bin Laden may be hiding.

In return, Pakistani officials are promising to restrict the country's troops in the area to major bases and towns and to pour huge amounts of aid - much of it from the United States and other nations - into the destitute region, according to American officials.

But as the truces take hold, separatists have been crossing into Afghanistan to fight alongside Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, according to Western and Afghan officials.

I was alerted to another gem from Bush in the Brian Williams interview. When asked about reading The Stranger, Bush explained: "I was in Crawford and I said I was looking for a book to read and Laura said you oughtta try Camus, I also read three Shakespeare's."

Three Shakespeare's?

It's as if Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies were President--not a real hillbilly, which I wouldn't much begrudge someone, but a Hollywood spoof of a hillbilly.

Who says Bush ever linked Iraq and 9/11? Why just this week he very carefully distinguished between the two in an interview with NBC's Brian Williams:

WILLIAMS: Do you have any moments of doubt that we fought a wrong war? Or that there's something wrong with the perception of America overseas?

BUSH: Well those are two different questions, did we fight the wrong war, and absolutely -- I have no doubt -- the war came to our shores, remember that. We had a foreign policy that basically said, let's hope calm works. And we were attacked.

WILLIAMS: But those weren't Iraqis.

BUSH : They werenât, no, I agree, they weren't Iraqis, nor did I ever say Iraq ordered that attack, but they're a part of, Iraq is part of the struggle against the terrorists.

Convinced?

Update: From Reader AS:

You left out the best part: "Now in terms of image, of course I worry about American image. We are great at TV, and yet we are getting crushed on the PR front. I personally do not believe that Saddam Hussein picked up the phone and said, 'al-Qaida, attack America.'"

After denying that Iraq ordered the attack, it seems to occur to Bush that he wasn't quite specific enough in describing his straw man -- or that he didn't quite nail this week's talking point -- and so he comes back around to take a firm stand against something that exactly zero people believe.

The unfortunate part of that interview, though, was that Williams had Bush right in the crosshairs when he began to ask him what led him to read "The Stranger". Bush says that Laura recommended it, but then Williams unfortunately wanders where Bush wants -- into a discussion of the other books he's read, low expectations, etc. If only Williams had given Bush some more room to talk -- or asked a followup like "What about the book made her think you'd like it?" -- he might have gotten closer to what people really want to know, which is whether Bush actually read Camus. Sigh.